Tag Archive for reason

Rumor: LucasArts Making New Star Wars Game

08/05/2012 / owner / No comments


There was a time when word of a new Star Wars game was reason for celebration. But after a string of disappointments, including the Force Unleashed series and most recently the absurd Han Solo dance-off known as Star Wars Kinect, I can only cross my fingers and hope that LucasArts won’t further embarrass itself with a mysterious new project called Star Wars 1313.

Siliconera reports that Lucasfilm registered a number of domain names tied to the Star Wars 1313 name last week. It also filed a Star Wars 1313 trademark — not for a film or television series, but for a videogame.

The rumor mill suggests Star Wars 1313 will be an online game tied to Boba Fett, because the Fett-man evidently used CT-1313 as an alias in a Star Wars novel.

Here’s to hoping LucasArts brings back the stellar mix of third- and first-person, Force powers, light sabers, and blasters of the Star Wars: Dark Forces series.

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/akE6ogQXCBw/1224440p1.html

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5 Memorable Video Game Industry One-Hit Wonders

29/04/2012 / owner / No comments


Just like the music industry, success can a hard thing to come by in video games. Some developers who stumble upon a blockbuster manage to turn one success into another and pump out hit after hit. Others simply spend years slogging it out with low-budget or licensed titles for no reward. One-hit wonders, however, crack the big-time just once, nailing a product everyone remembers but failing to ever reach those giddy heights again.

Here are five of the video game industry’s biggest Toni Basils.

Alexey Pajitnov is the ultimate video game one-hit wonder. Pajitnov (in case your teacher never covered this on the spaceship you immigrated to Earth on) is responsible for Tetris, one of the most popular and enduring video games of all time.

Pajitnov created Tetris at a Soviet government-funded RD centre with the help of two other men, Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov, in 1985. Soviet authorities quickly demanded Pajitnov relinquish all rights to the game, because that’s how things worked back in the USSR.




In fact, during the 10 year period Tetris was owned by the state it’s estimated Pajitnov lost around $40 million in royalties while his government ironed out their own deals with video game publishers around the world. This is the same reason Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the AK-47, maintains the only money he receives from the government is his state pension, despite estimates of the amount of AK-47s around the world in the range of 100 million.

Unlike Kalashnikov, however, Pajitnov eventually got the rights to Tetris back (The Tetris Company is the sole owner of the Tetris mark). But can you name something else Pajitnov has done? Well, there was Welltris, the sequel to Tetris the world forgot. Then there was Wordtris, which was Tetris with words. Then there was Hatris, which was Tetris with hats.




Through the late ’90s and early 2000s Pajitnov worked for Microsoft and was responsible for Hexic, a game most 360 owners haven’t played for six years.

Stern was making pinball tables when arcade gaming shot into the spotlight and in 1980 the company produced Berzerk. It was the only game of note Stern ever made and the company stopped making games just a few years later, during the video game crash of 1983.

Berzerk, then, remains Stern’s one big hit. Berzerk also remains the reason I don’t really care for horror games. The first time I played Berzerk as a kid in the ’80s I had nightmares. All this game wanted to do was kill me. If you touched the walls, you’d die. If you touched a robot, you’d die. If you were shot by a robot, you’d die. If you were close to an exploding robot, you’d die. Then there was Evil Otto.




Berzerk’s Evil Otto was a floating Smiley Face with a thirst for death that could not be quenched. When I began to imagine an unflinching, indifferent Smiley Face materialising in my room at night to erase me it was game over for Berzerk. In my defence, I was only five.

Plus, Berzerk had killed people before. Seriously.

Realtime Worlds, founded in 2002 and based in Dundee, Scotland, was destined for great things. Its first release was the successful Crackdown for Xbox 360 in 2007. Shipping with the Halo 3 beta probably didn’t hurt its commercial success but, to the game’s credit, it was well-received critically. At the 2007 BAFTA Video Game Awards ceremony Crackdown picked up two gongs and in 2008 Crackdown was awarded Best Debut at the GDC’s Game Developers Choice awards.




Its next game was 2010′s APB, an MMO that had been in development for five years and was expected to make a truckload of cash. Unfortunately for Realtime Worlds, APB was received with all the enthusiasm of a fart in an elevator and the company found itself in administration a mere six weeks after the game’s release.

L.A. Noire can be attributed with a variety of firsts. It was the first game to showcase the exceedingly impressive MotionScan technology, the performance capturing magic responsible for the game’s incredible facial animation. It was the first video game ever to be shown at the esteemed Tribeca Film Festival. It was the first video game to come out of promising Sydney-based studio Team Bondi.




Unfortunately, it was also its last.

L.A. Noire was a bona fide critical and commercial hit; as of earlier this year the game had sold close to five million copies. However, Team Bondi (which was actually based several suburbs west of Bondi in a part of Sydney that doesn’t have a world-famous beach) found itself being wound-up just a few short months after the release of its sizzling debut in a cloud of controversy.

Quick, name a game from OMGPOP. Draw Something, right?

Cool. Now name another.




OMGPOP produced a bucketload of other games before Draw Something that nobody’s ever heard of. Judging by their names they’re not exactly world-changing future classics either, unless there’s something about Hamster Battle, Putt Putt Penguin or Puppy World that we don’t know.

There’s certainly no denying the hit-status of Draw Something; just 50 days after its release the app had been downloaded 50 million times. It was such a massive hit, in fact, that social juggernaut Zynga up and bought OMGPOP for a cool $180 million. All over the world right now people who are really good at art are using Draw Something to make people who can’t draw feel exceedingly lame about it.




Of course, perhaps it’s a little unfair to call OMGPOP a one-hit wonder just yet. Perhaps the company has another blockbuster in it. Maybe one that you can, you know, win at.

What other one-hit wonders come to mind? Let us know in the comments.

Luke is Games Editor at IGN AU. You can chat to him about games, cars and Die Hard on IGN here or find him and the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia Facebook community.

Article source: http://feeds.ign.com/~r/ignfeeds/all/~3/2pbAMtS-5u0/1223981p1.html

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Google "Zerg Rush" Right Now

27/04/2012 / owner / No comments


Did you do it it yet? If not, you’re missing out. For some unknown reason the fine folks over at Google today have added a hilarious little feature for anyone who searches “zerg rush.” We don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but suffice it to say that if you do, you better be prepared to do a whole lot of clicking to protect your search results.




You’re welcome.

Anthony is an Editor on IGN’s PC team. You can follow him on IGN and read his occasional thoughts on Twitter.

Article source: http://feeds.ign.com/~r/ignfeeds/all/~3/Dke_MrGkdH4/1223905p1.html

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No Wii U price reveal at E3

27/04/2012 / owner / No comments

Gamers hoping to learn the Wii U’s price point at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo are out of luck. Nintendo confirmed today that it will announce the price and launch date for the new system sometime after the show, which runs June 5-7 in Los Angeles.


Nintendo is not going to divulge the Wii U's price point at E3.

Nintendo is not going to divulge the Wii U’s price point at E3.

Nintendo has not given any clues as to what the Wii U will cost, but Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter believes the company must launch the system at $250 or below. The reason for this, Pachter says, is that he believes the Xbox 360 Kinect bundle will be priced at this level by the time the Wii U launches.

Another report suggests that the Wii U will carry a higher price tag. Forget The Box claims Nintendo will launch the Wii U at “no less than $300″ later this year.

Nintendo may not be revealing the Wii U’s price point at E3 2012, but it will show off the system’s final hardware configuration. Additionally, the company said it will highlight the system’s 2012 software lineup at the show.

THQ’s Darksiders II is the only Wii U launch title to be announced thus far. The Wii U is currently scheduled to release globally during the 2012 holiday season.

Article source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/no-wii-u-price-reveal-at-e3-6373821

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PSOne Classic Appears on European Vita Store

27/04/2012 / owner / No comments


With a PSOne legacy title leaking onto Sony’s European Vita store, there’s increasing reason to believe we’ll see an update enabling emulation soon. A Reddit user stumbled onto a downloadable version of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command for 3.99 pounds, or about $5.00.




Buzz Lightyear downloaded properly before an error prevented the user from playing it. However, they found themselves able to access the emulation menus (similar to those when running PSP titles) from within the launched application.

With any luck, this game released ahead of a firmware update supporting such emulation of the original PlayStation library.

UPDATE: Sony says this was an error and the item has since been removed, and that it has “no announcements at this time” concerning emulation updates.

Source: Reddit (thanks Chris).

Mitch Dyer is an Associate Editor for IGN’s Xbox 360 team. He’s also quite Canadian. Read his ramblings on Twitter and follow him on IGN.

Article source: http://feeds.ign.com/~r/ignfeeds/all/~3/MI0rm1d32iM/1223848p1.html

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Wii U: It’s Time to Change the Name

24/04/2012 / owner / No comments


Nintendo’s fiscal results for 2012 are due in just a few days, but more important than that milestone is one simple fact – E3 2012 is a mere six weeks away. More and more, all eyes are focusing on that show for one reason – Nintendo will be fully unveiling its next home console. After dominating the industry for several years with bold, mainstream-oriented tactics, Nintendo’s innovative, motion-controlled Wii ran out of steam, limping badly for the past year as its release schedule screeched to a halt and gamers of all ages and passions turned elsewhere for entertainment.

Last year, the company finally indicated it was ready to switch gears, moving into an HD era that would appeal to an even wider audience than before. However, one problem has haunted Nintendo since it gave gamers a glimpse of its new hardware– the name of the system. Too clever for its own good, the name “Wii U” sends far too many mixed messages at a time when none can be afforded.

The fact that Nintendo’s fiscal results arrive later this week is important for a few reasons, the biggest of which is that the company routinely makes broad announcements about its future. Last year, the company confirmed it planned to showcase its next-generation console at E3 2011. This year, the timing would be perfect to discard the ‘Wii U’ name, rebranding its new hardware as something that will actually make sense to both casual and more hardcore gamers. That’s the problem with the ‘Wii U’ branding right now – it doesn’t fit any priority of the company.




When Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime revealed the system’s name at E3 2011, the rationale he gave was that this new platform was inclusive. According to Fils-Aime, Nintendo was now going to make sure its system appealed to ‘we’ and ‘you’. The reality is the name made little sense to anyone. Casual audiences confused the device for a peripheral, thinking Wii had suddenly been given a tablet, much like the Wii Fit balance board years prior. The fact that Nintendo didn’t prominently display the actual console next to the controller didn’t help, but the similarities between Wii and Wii U designs made that almost irrelevant. Many people simply didn’t understand Nintendo was shifting generations, and retaining the Wii naming only reinforced that perception.

As for the more hardcore, dedicated gamers, the name ‘Wii U’ didn’t suggest Nintendo was seriously pursuing a new strategy. To those not completely up to date on the company’s admittedly extensive rhetoric, the console’s name, its logo and its general design scream something that follows in the footsteps of Wii – a system that prioritizes more casual, family-friendly fare far over matching (or exceeding) the industry standard.




There’s no doubt Nintendo’s current system has produced some incredible content. Super Mario Galaxy and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, to name two games, are some of the finest ever made. Yet years from now, Wii won’t be remembered for those games by the vast majority of the world. People will think back to Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Wii Play. And while Nintendo will always pursue innovation – just look at the Wii U tablet – nothing about the publisher’s current branding remotely suggests this platform will stand alongside the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 – or their successors. Its predecessor ultimately didn’t.

Because Wii forged its own path, its brand identity is uniquely its own. In fact in many ways that odd, three-letter word overshadows Nintendo’s own name, conjuring up a very distinct and particular representation and meaning to gamers of all ages. For some that association is overwhelmingly positive. For some it’s decidedly the opposite. Although it is admirable and logical that Nintendo would attempt to keep the brand it has worked so hard to establish, it would likely have far more success moving away from it. A clean slate would do wonders, particularly if Nintendo hopes to expand back into the core video game market it more or less left. ‘Wii’ was Nintendo’s biggest branding risk ever, and it paid off. There’s no reason it can’t do the same thing again.




The current generation of consoles is nearly six years old at this point, and while Wii U is undoubtedly an innovative “next-generation” product, it will still need to court gamers that are likely satisfied to wait for a new Xbox or PlayStation. For half a decade, Nintendo made it clear that while it would publish incredible games, it would march to its own beat, more concerned about Wii Fit Plus than Call of Duty: Black Ops. For the company to change that impression, for it to want to host cutting edge versions of all games for all audiences – and for gamers to believe the publisher is serious about making that happen – it needs to send a clear signal. And that starts with a brand. That starts with a name, which then echoes across hardware design, user interfaces, marketing, messaging and more.

If Nintendo is really serious about finding a new image in this new generation, the name ‘Wii U’ must go. And it needs to go now.

E3 2012 is just six weeks away…

Rich is an Executive Editor of IGN.com and the leader of the IGN Nintendo team. Follow his ridiculous adventures through MyIGN and Twitter. Keep it cool, Koopalings.

Article source: http://feeds.ign.com/~r/ignfeeds/all/~3/KhDsXMfAjZI/1223595p1.html

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Opinion: Games for Windows Live is Awful, Microsoft Doesn’t Care, and Why it Won’t Matter Soon

20/04/2012 / owner / No comments

Since its debut with Shadowrun and Halo 2 in May 2007, Games for Windows Live has done little but create ill will between Microsoft and PC gamers. Despite repeated insistence that it will improve given time, Microsoft’s actions have spoken much louder, and crystal clear: it’s demonstrated a neglectful attitude and an unwillingness to compete with Steam’s dominance. Yet for some reason refuses to simply pull the plug and put GFWL out of its misery, instead inviting developers to integrate it to their games and bogging down great games like Batman: Arkham City with its inferior and annoying system. The good news is that whether Microsoft will admit it or not, by almost all indications GFWL doesn’t have much of a future.


What is Games for Windows Live?

There’s a lot of confusion as to what the words “Games for Windows Live” actually mean, and why they inspire such dread in so many PC gamers when uttered in connection with an anticipated game. Part of that is thanks to some truly awful branding by Microsoft. Not to be confused with its benign brother, plain-old Games for Windows label (which isn’t actually software), or the now-defunct Games for Windows Marketplace, GFWL is the Windows side of the Xbox Live network, except without any of the features that make Xbox Live interesting or useful. It does multiplayer matchmaking, a rudimentary friends list, email-like text chat, voice chat, syncing settings over the cloud, cross-platform play (in three games from 2007/2008) and achievement tracking. That’s the extent of its features, and every single one of them is markedly inferior to Steam. When the stars align, GFWL works well enough that I can pretend it’s not there, but that’s the highest praise I can give it.


The problems run deeper than a clumsily designed interface that makes things as simple as asking a friend “Hey, want to play a game with me?” (or replying) harder than they need to be. I have personally encountered all of these problems: installation issues, rendering saved games inaccessible (particularly with Batman games), requiring system reboots for minor updates, and requiring PC gamers to buy Microsoft points to buy DLC. Anecdotally, I’ve heard gamers outside of North America complain of regional restrictions that prevent GFWL games from working at all in their countries. And annoyingly, people with both PCs and Xboxes complain that they can’t log into both at the same time — if someone else is using Xbox Live to stream Netflix in the other room, logging in on your PC boots them out.

I’m also frustrated by major feature shortcomings. For example, I can only see if friends are online if I’m already in a game — there is no desktop application that allows me to see notifications that a friend is playing and join them. I can’t even upload a custom avatar image, for crying out loud.

The only group I’ve ever heard utter a kind word toward GFWL are the self-proclaimed Achievement Whores, gamers who will buy even the worst games to nudge their Xbox Live Gamerscore a little higher. If the only feature that anybody likes about your product is that it makes a completely meaningless number tick up, you are doing it wrong.

There Is No Hope

All of that is arguably fixable, and it’s certainly true that seven or eight years ago Steam wasn’t a whole lot better or well-liked by gamers. But Valve stuck with it, and gradually improved Steam to the point where today it’s beloved by most, with the exception of the staunchly anti-online crowd. That’s the reason I’ve completely lost faith that GFWL will ever significantly improve: the utter lack of updates or progress.

I tried to remember the last time Games for Windows Live added a new feature, however insignificant. I couldn’t, and I couldn’t find a changelog anywhere detailing the evolution of GFWL, which is now on version 3.5.92.0, because Microsoft doesn’t maintain one. So I Googled “Games for Windows Live adds.” Limiting the search to the past year, I got five results. Of those, only one refers to something that happened in the past year: the addition of new achievements to Section 8: Prejudice. Doesn’t count. The rest are links to a story about the addition of Games on Demand downloads, which happened in December 2009, and are more a feature of Games for Windows Marketplace than GFWL. (It has since moved to its new home at Xbox.com.)


I expanded the search to two years. This time I got seven results, which included two additional links to the same story.

Ok, let’s try three years, reaching back to April 2009: 19 results. Now we’re getting somewhere! Surely one of these… oh. More links to the Games on Demand story, plus a couple of forum posts that include “Games for Windows Live adds its own layer of complexity to backing up save games,” and “I don’t know if Games for Windows Live adds to your Xbox account or not.”

Four years, all the way back to April 2008. 24 results. Bingo! In March 2009, Shack News reported: “Games for Windows Live Adds Anti-piracy Solution, In-game Marketplace.” Hard to get excited about an anti-piracy solution, but the story has a little more meat: “Games for Windows Live will now save users’ settings in the cloud, allowing access to the settings regardless of the PC used.” Hey, that’s great, and a mere five months after Steam announced Steamcloud! Unfortunately that feature has barely seen any significant use — if GFWL were to sync, for example, my Batman: Arkham Asylum games instead of locking me out of them when I reformatted my PC, I might only hate it 75 percent as much as I do.

But think about that: the last time GFWL added a feature, George W. Bush was president. Obama’s campaign for change obviously did not have much effect in Redmond. In that same time period, even if you exclude Steamcloud (which actually does sync some saved games), Valve has busily added screen capture and sharing tools, item trading, Facebook integration, increased voice chat quality, revamped its patching system to improve download efficiency, Steam Guard authentication, numerous UI tweaks, cross-platform play with the PlayStation 3, and perhaps the crown jewel: the Steam Workshop mod system. I’m probably forgetting some here, but the point is that there is absolutely no contest. Next to Steam GFWL is a bad joke, and shows no signs of improvement.

There Is No Future

Microsoft may refuse to pull the plug, but GFWL’s incompetence and lethargy may soon become its own undoing, as more and more game makers abandon it. Over the last few years it’s been dropped like a bad habit by 2K, Bethesda, Eidos/Square Enix, THQ, Rockstar, and SEGA. EA had a one-time fling when it released Bulletstorm last year, but with the launch of Origin it’s safe to say that won’t happen again. The latest to join the exodus is Codemasters, which has dropped GFWL from DiRT: Showdown. “I think a lot of people have shouted out for it, asking why we’re not using Steamworks, so we’ve transitioned across now,” said DiRT Associate Producer Ian Smith when asked about the switch. “It’s the logical choice for us, the popular logical choice for everybody concerned.” He added that this will likely be a long-term switch for Codemasters, and cited customer concerns about usability with GFWL.


That means that as of now, the only notable publishers (other than Microsoft itself) still using GFWL are Warner Bros., Capcom, and Namco Bandai, and the only announced games of note are Street Fighter X Tekken, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, Resident Evil 6, Lost Planet 3, and Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition. That’s still too many, but we’re on the right track: if Namco Bandai gets the message and drops it as well, as it’s hinted that it might, GFWL’s support will have dwindled to near oblivion, and it’ll only be a matter of time before Capcom and Warner give in as well.

But wait, you say! Microsoft is integrating Live into Windows 8! True, but that’s not Games for Windows Live, it’s Xbox Live. That’s the Live Microsoft cares about, and that’s the Live that will live on. Even if GFWL does continue to plug along somehow, what’s a multiplayer service with no games?

Full disclosure: GameSpy is owned by IGN, which also owns and maintains the GameSpy Tech multiplayer matchmaking service.


Spy Guy says: Games for Windows Live can’t die fast enough for me. For all the flak Origin gets, it’s a much better experience than GFWL, and has already added new features in patches. It may not hold a candle to Steam, but at least it seems to want to. What’s your experience with GFWL been like?

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/A4L4_WB61B8/1223378p1.html

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Zelda: A Link to the Past

18/04/2012 / owner / No comments


Late last year, we here at IGN compiled our list of the top 100 SNES games – a retrospective of sorts on the system’s best software. In the midst of some fierce competition, against a selection of titles that represent some of the best gaming has to offer (Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger and Super Mario World, to name just a handful), The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past managed to take our pick for the number one game of what many consider to be the number one system of all time.

Needless to say, we were absolutely thrilled to find out recently that Miyamoto wants to make a new game in the style of A Link to the Past. Whether it would be a port or a true sequel is still up in the air … but if it is, in fact, a brand new, 16-bit Hylian adventure, it’s got some work to do if it hopes to reach the heights of Link’s SNES masterpiece. To have any chance of living up to its highly acclaimed source material, here are a handful of things this new link to Zelda’s past would have to nail. Take a look, then leave us your own thoughts in the comments section afterward.

Gameplay is easily the most important aspect of any game, so it’s absolutely key for this hypothetical A Link to the Past sequel to pulls its weight in that department. We’d expect nothing less than the perfectly balanced brilliance offered up by its predecessor. A Link to the Past built upon the groundwork laid by the original Legend of Zelda for NES (Zelda II, while awesome, was something of an odd duck out). It took the same basic formula of item acquisition, dungeon exploration and epic boss battles and expanded on them just enough to allow for a rich, satisfying gameplay experience from the opening rainstorm to the last showdown with Ganon.

A Link to the Past also introduced the Light and Dark World system, transforming the overworld and essentially doubling the map. This mechanic was used in a number of creative ways, not only setting the scene but also allowing for plenty of hidden secrets and heart pieces for players to discover. This mechanic would be difficult to reproduce in a direct sequel, unless you thought of a really good reason why it was returning, but the new game would need to sport something equally enchanting.

The pacing in the original was also pitch perfect, the enemies were balanced just right, and throwing players right into the action (without even a sword at first) made for a thrilling, engaging, and ultimately unforgettable experience. Give us more of that in a sequel, and just try to stop us from pre-ordering.

Items are an important part of any Zelda game – and in A Link to the Past, they were done perfectly. Every item felt so real, largely because they could interact with any object in the environment, even if all it did was make a little noise. For instance, if you shot your hookshot at any surface, it would make contact and produce an appropriate sound effect, going a long way in connecting players to the world. For a proper sequel to live up to ALttP, it would have to take the items a step further, making us feel more connected to our surrounding than in any 2D Zelda game before it.

As for the boomerang, it was a freaking revelation in A Link to the Past. The magical ‘rang you eventually upgrade to can travel the length of the entire screen and beyond, cutting grass and picking up rupees and bombs along the way. It was terribly useful, and although it wasn’t the one barrier between you and instant death like in the first game, it was essentially your left hand once you picked it up in the first dungeon (or right hand, if your sprite is facing right). It’s hard to make a boomerang terribly useful in 3D combat (I’m looking at you, Ocarina of Time), but this wasn’t a problem for this 2D installment, where your boomerang is as useful as you choose for it to be. Making the boomerang relevant again in the sequel is key.

A Link to the Past was also responsible for introducing items like the ocarina (called a flute in the American release for some reason) and hookshot. It was also the first game where you had an animal friend to bum a ride from (something that later returned in the Oracle games, and more recently in Skyward Sword). Yay for animal buddies!

It may sound crazy to gamers raised on the more advanced graphics of the current generation of consoles, but you don’t need a high polygon count to have an incredibly immersive game (check out any of the games at the top of our best of SNES list for proof of that). In fact, in many ways A Link to the Past is more immersive than a lot of modern games, with no invisible walls to walk into or areas that look like you should be able to access, but you can’t for some reason.

In addition to feeling like you can touch and interact with everything on screen (especially if you have the correct items), the game’s transcendent soundtrack, care of the great Koji Kondo, also helped engulf players in the world of 16-bit Hyrule. Its epic opening didn’t hurt either. All of these elements are absolutely crucial for a new game to have any hope of capturing the same sense of awe we felt when we first tromped across Hyrule field all those years ago.

In a world full of lengthy cutscenes and games that resemble movies more than… well, games, it might seem strange to point to A Link to the Past as an example of great storytelling. But it was – and it is. In fact, respected game designer Warren Spector has singled it out as the finest example of a narrative game in existence. Though somewhat barebones by today’s standards, the story in A Link to the Past was absolutely captivating, unfolding in just the right way so that the gameplay was never interrupted, but you always felt like your journey was pushing toward an epic conclusion.

As a follow-up story-wise to Ocarina of Time (before the N64 classic even began development), A Link to the Past covers a lot of territory absolutely critical to Zelda lore – such as the Master Sword, the sages, the Princess’ powerful life force, the magical ocarina and Ganon’s revival, to mention just a handful. To feel as weighty and important as A Link to the Past, the sequel would also have to cover territory dear to the hearts of Zelda fans worldwide. If it featured as memorable of characters (Sahasrahla, Blind, Flute Boy and so on), all the better.

Those are just a handful of reasons why A Link to the Past rocked our socks off when it debuted more than 20 years ago – and those very elements we hope to see return if this sequel ever ends up happening. So what do you think of our guidelines? Did we miss anything big? Let us know in the comments below!

Audrey Drake is an Associate Editor of IGN.com and a proud member of the IGN Nintendo team. She is also a lifelong gamer, a frequent banisher of evil and a wielder of various legendary blades. You can follow her zany exploits on her IGN blog and Twitter. Game on!

Article source: http://feeds.ign.com/~r/ignfeeds/all/~3/uAPhQATEE1M/1223183p1.html

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Tribes: Ascend Review

18/04/2012 / owner / No comments


Tribes: Ascend blows in at 183km/h like a hurricane of fresh air. It’s a faithful recreation of a sci-fi PC classic, it’s fast, competitive fun, and you won’t find anything else like it online. Oh, and it’s free.

For those of you just joining us, we’ve already taken a lengthy look at Tribes: Ascend, courtesy your friendly neighborhood Free Agent, during the closed beta. The full release launched on April 12, so it’s time to slap an official review score on this sucker.

What’s New?

I won’t get into all the nitty-gritty details here once again, since nothing much has changed about the excellent and affordable free-to-play model and basic gameplay, but I will repeat my bottom line: Tribes is back and it’s better than ever. It’s even truer now than the last time I said it, because with the full release Hi-Rez added the new Domination-like Capture and Hold mode and a remastered version of the classic Tribes map, Raindance.

Capture and Hold is an advanced mode reserved for Level 8 players and above, and for good reason: to succeed, you’ll need to play as a team well-versed in Tribes’ mechanics, and voice chat is highly recommended. For those old-timers that felt Tribes: Ascend failed to recreate the team-oriented gameplay of the original and Tribes 2, Capture and Hold will scratch your itch.


The classic capture-point mode gets an infusion of life in Tribes thanks to the bases controlled by each side, and the powerful turrets protecting them. The fun game-within-a-game of destroying the enemy’s turret-powering generator (and protecting your own) we know from Capture the Flag mode blossoms in Cap and Hold because the base capture points are located right next to the generators, which concentrates all the players in smaller areas. I had a blast returning to the enemy base time and again for frantic gunbattles featuring massive Juggernauts, cloaked Infiltrators, turret-building (and generator-repairing) Technicians, and grenade-throwing Soldiers.

I just wish it looked prettier. Even on the highest graphical settings the final product is not as high-res (wordplay!) as I thought it would be, and the wide open battlefields are in sore need of additional scenery elements to add visual variety.

As it stands now, the majority of the grass-, snow-, and desert-themed maps are really only separated by their primary colors (Drydock being a notable exception thanks to its floating spaceship bases).

Damn Snipers

Brilliant game-within-the-game battles play out at each Cap and Hold capture point on different maps, most notably at the hotly contested bridge smack in the middle of Raindance. Each team has a turret on their side of the bridge providing protection, and I found myself retreating to its automated blasts when the enemy rushed and pushing past it confidently as my squad counter-attacked in engrossing tug-of-war firefights.


That is, when I wasn’t getting capped by snipers. Either the sniper weapons have been amped up significantly since the beta or the people playing as snipers have improved dramatically. Whatever the reason, I fell from headshots and long-distance finishing shots at an alarming rate, adding an unwanted element to the cat-and-mouse, skiing and jet-packing combat Tribes is famous for. A nerf could be in order.

Why play Tribes, a game all about high-speed combat, if you want to stand still and snipe? It’s that insane anti-friction-boot speed that makes Cap and Hold truly different in Tribes. Got a cap point that’s about to fall? Ski over at 180km/h and save the day — or at least give it the old college try. I found myself skiing all over Raindance’s green hills and Katabatic’s frosty peaks as capture points were secured and taken in a blink. Combined with the different strategies required at the various capture points, traditional vanilla Domination becomes a deep, layered, frenetic experience in Tribes’ Capture and Hold.

Like a Champ

Also, kudos to Hi-Rez for handling the increased server load brought by the official release without missing a beat. I was never booted from a match, stuck in a queue, or hit with significant lag, even when playing on Tribes’ highest graphical settings. Sure, the highest setting isn’t very high, but still, I was impressed by Tribes’ rock solid performance.


Hi-Rez polished and tweaked Tribes: Ascend for months in beta (with updates certain to continue unabated), and the full release shines. Capture and Hold and Raindance are strong additions to an already-strong free shooter, and it makes Tribes: Ascend an even more addictive “just one more match” FPS that’s unlike any other shooter on the market. In the age of me-too shooters, that’s not just a good thing, that’s a great thing.


Spy Guy says: Anti-friction boots, eh? Sounds like a gadget I could put to good use. But what’s with the sniper hate? Pulling off a long-distance headshot while your target is moving faster than a cheetah with a jetpack is all about skill, Sharkey. Would you like a little cheese with your whine?

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/B2CpgfiZGbk/1223175p1.html

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Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP for PC Comes with Free Soudtrack

15/04/2012 / owner / No comments

You know what I love? Free music. You know what makes free music even better? When it’s attached to a rad game. The Superbrothers: Sword Sworcery EP PC edition will be offering just that (as if you needed any other reason to check out the quirky, critically acclaimed game). Jim Guthrie’s delightfully ambient soundtrack will be available for anyone who picks up the Steam version.

For those who aren’t familiar with Guthrie’s work, here’s one of my favorite tracks off of the soundtrack, entitled The Ballad of the Space Babies:

I know right? So good. Throw that bad boy on loop and just relax, man.

In addition to announcing the free album, the folks at Capybara Games briefly mention some sort of “psychosocial audiovisual experiment.” No other details were given, but those familiar with S:SS EP know there’s a strong likelihood that it’ll be kind of insane.

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/TdvnsMaI3pw/1223041p1.html

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